Black-chinned Honeyeater

About the Black-chinned Honeyeater

The black-chinned honeyeater (Melithreptus gularis) is a species of passerine bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to Australia. Two subspecies are recognised. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical dry forests.

The black-chinned honeyeater was first described by John Gould in 1837 as Haematops gularis. He also described what he called the golden-backed honeyeater (as Melithreptus laetior) of northern Australia in 1875. Frederick George Waterhouse of the South Australian Museum had sent him four skins, writing of their beauty. Gould noted that it was clearly closely related to M. gularis, but differed in its plumage and smaller size. Richard Schodde united them into a single species in 1975, though Hugh Ford queried this in 1986, as he felt the two forms were as distinct as the yellow-tinted and fuscous honeyeaters that had similar ranges. Schodde countered that the black-chinned and golden-backed honeyeaters shared a much broader zone of hybridization. Since then they have been maintained as two subspecies of M. gularis, though Christidis and Boles noted in 2008 that data was limited and more fieldwork and genetic investigation... Wikipedia →